Chapter 5
FIVE
FINN
George Washington Bridge at dawn was a blur of headlights and river haze.
By the time I pounded back across, Manhattan wore an iridescent halo as if it had been plugged directly into the sun.
I felt… calm. Or something close to it, anyway.
Hopefully, outrunning my nerves for six miles meant they’d spend the rest of the day catching up.
I grabbed a fresh set of scrubs from the dispenser and showered in the resident locker room.
After a detour to the staff lounge for vaguely drinkable coffee from a knock-off Nespresso machine, I made it to the skills-center lecture bay before the clock hit seven a.m. Two dozen other interns milled around.
Tessa waved me into the seat next to Khai.
“Morning.” Her headband, the same shade of pink as her hair, said Trauma Queen. “You look awake. I resent that.”
“It’s called endorphins. You should try them sometime—they’re free.” I fished for a grin and fitted it onto my face, forced myself not to glance at everyone else in the room. Turned out my nerves were good at playing tag.
Prove you belong.
“You mean, like, exercise?” Khai asked. “No, thanks. I’d rather get another hour of sleep.”
“Smart,” Tessa told him.
“I have my moments,” he said, with a shy little smile that made me want to coo at them. Living vicariously through others for the next few years was a perfectly legitimate life choice. Just then, chief resident Dr. Garcia strode in, clicker in hand.
“He missed his calling as a special operations commander,” Tessa whispered, and Garcia shot her a look as if he’d heard it.
“Eyes up, scrubs,” he announced. “We’ve got business.”
The lights dimmed as a slide was projected onto the wall. The Suture Bowl, it said in superhero letters, bursts and all, with the NFL trophy pasted into the right bottom corner of the screen.
Oh, fuck—the competition. I’d almost forgotten. How.
I swallowed thickly just as Garcia continued, “Two-day throwdown. Winner moves straight into a three-month pediatric surgery rotation—one that finishes with an assist in separating thoraco-omphalopagus twins in late October.”
Murmurs rippled through the room, and whoa, okay—wow.
Separating conjoined twins? A once-in-a-career case, that’s what he’d called it, and it was.
Putting that on my resumé, even if all I did was pass a scalpel?
Holy shit. I tasted adrenaline at the back of my throat as Garcia clicked to the next slide.
“Round one,” he said. “Thursday at two. Blind scoring. Timed knot-board, lap box peg transfer, and central-line mannequin. No names, just numbers. Only the top five advance.”
My heart skipped half a beat. Tie stitches fast, move tiny crap around with chopsticks while staring at a screen, and stick a needle into a fake neck without hitting anything important.
I’d trained for this—med school, yes, but also late at night with online tutorials and a hand-me-down surgical training kit I’d scored off an older med student.
I wasn’t flashy, but I was fast and precise.
Five out of twenty-five. I could maybe actually do this.
“Round two,” Garcia said, and all chatter died abruptly. “Friday at eight. Case presentation by the final five. Ten minutes, followed by rapid-fire questions from a panel of fellows and attendings.”
The slide listed five names: Garcia himself, two attendings, and two supervising fellows. Including—well. Fuck. Jesse Maddox, MD: Senior Fellow, Pediatric Surgery.
Now it was acid that I tasted. This was… Jesus Christ, the universe was having a good old laugh somewhere off in the distance, right? I stared for another blink, then forced my gaze down to the empty coffee mug.
“When they say case presentation,” Tessa hissed, “do they mean, like, a PowerPoint? Because I suck at PowerPoint.”
“Here’s what it’ll look like,” Garcia said right into Khai’s whispered “Doubt it.” Next slide.
“At seven sharp, if you made the cut, we’ll call you to the front.
You get the patient case, spaced out so you each have exactly an hour to prep—no phones, no internet access.
We’ll be watching every breath you take, just like the song. ”
No one laughed, tension stretching thick like a rope.
Amusement glimmered in Garcia’s eyes even as his tone remained matter-of-fact.
“Once your hour’s up, you’ll be called in one by one.
Ten minutes to present, five minutes for questions from the judges.
Your fellow residents—the ones who didn’t make it into the top five—will get to watch. And hopefully learn something.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. I’d been prepared for awkward flutters of boot-camp interaction with Jesse, and more of the same when I’d rotate through pediatric surgery.
But this? Jesse judging, quizzing me in front of everyone?
Fucking hell. He’d promised neutrality, sure—but I’d dropped to my knees for him, he’d had his fingers and cock up my ass. How do you park a memory that graphic?
Garcia wrapped up with a final bark. “This is about precision under pressure. Losers get coffee and PTSD, victor gets a story to tell their kids one day. Questions?”
No one dared to twitch.
“Great,” Garcia said. “Lap sim groups in ten. Dismissed.”
The lights came up as chatter exploded. For a second, both Tessa and Khai were silent, then she glanced between us. “Okay, strategy. Finn walks us through some dexterity drills, Khai keeps us calm, and I’m pretty good with presentations as such. Just not fucking PowerPoint.”
I blinked. “You want to team up?”
“It’s not exactly a team event.” She lifted a shoulder. “But mutual coaching increases all our odds, right? Like, yeah, I want to win this. But if it can’t be me, I’d rather it’d be one of you than that dude I was paired with yesterday who said that my hair indicates ‘a lack of maturity.’”
“Probably just projecting,” Khai put in. “So, group study later? I’ll bring paper bags we can breathe into.”
Warmth snaked into my chest. “Deal.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Jesse consulting with Garcia at the podium—profile sharp, exuding an air of easy confidence. When he glanced up, his gaze swept the room once, passed over me and paused a fraction too long. Heat flared in my cheeks as I quickly looked away.
“That’s Maddox, right? One of the judges.” Tessa had clearly followed my line of sight. “He recalibrated my posture yesterday. Was quite nice about it, too.”
“Uh, yeah.” I rubbed a hand over my neck. “Haven’t really spoken to him.”
Other than that night he thought I was a hooker and also fucked my brains out. Possibly some of the best sex of my life. But, yeah. Other than that? Nope.
Oh, hell.
Next to us, Khai locked his phone with a resolute air. “Found a Reddit thread on these kinds of pressure tests, what sort of ethical curveballs they might throw at us.”
“What’s the verdict?” Tessa asked.
“A mix of clinical instincts, emotional stability, and not sounding like a psychopath.”
“So, no pressure,” I said, and Tessa laughed.
“Let’s meet at my place—I’ve got vodka.”
Empirically speaking, my alcohol-fueled judgment was questionable. Still. “It’s a plan,” I said, and Khai nodded.
As we moved toward the lap boxes, I caught another glimpse of Jesse accepting a clipboard from Garcia, expression unreadable, half-facing away from the room.
God. On Thursday, my work had to speak for itself.
And on Friday, if I stood in front of him with a case presentation, I needed to shine so brightly it blotted out our past, made it easy for him to judge me on science and clear communication.
And if I did too well—if I actually won—then congrats, me: three months of daily face time with my favorite ethical minefield, coming right up.
Yeah. No pressure at all.
Tessa’s apartment came with a disco ball dangling from a ceiling hook. It threw bright spots on the walls as we spent three hours stitching up foam cubes, demolishing Chinese takeout, and then speed-running presentation drills.
My turn to present. I’d never been a comfortable public speaker, even if my audience consisted of Tessa nursing a craft beer while Khai mainlined tiny pretzels.
“Okay,” I started. “So the likely diagnosis is tracheomalacia—floppy airway cartilage—which can worsen during infections or agitation. We’d start—”
“Whoa,” Tessa interrupted. “Hey. Lead with the age and reason for admission, don’t just jump to your conclusions. You’ll lose them immediately.”
“Also,” Khai said, “might wanna slow it down a little. The way you’re talking, it’s like…” He paused for a grin. “Like the patient’s a ticking bomb and you’re rushing to cut the wire—any wire.”
It tugged a small chuckle out of me. “Love the imagery.”
“I’m a man of many talents,” he said, and Tessa laughed.
“Clearly.” She nodded at me. “Now, try again?”
Right, cool. Except I stopped for a second to look at them—Tessa about to take a sip of beer, Khai with pretzels in his lap like we were at the movies, disco-ball speckles dancing over them.
In theory, we were competitors. But I’d given them some pointers on their handiwork earlier, little things that might make a difference in the judging, and now they were genuinely trying to make me better.
“Hey,” I said, almost shy all of a sudden. “Thank you both. I’m really glad we bumped into each other. Makes this whole thing feel less like…”
“Gladiator-arena vibes?” Khai suggested, grin softening.
“Shared trauma leads to speedier recovery,” Tessa said. “There are totally studies on that.”
We all laughed—quick and breathy, more about the pressure than humor. I reset my shoulders.
“Okay. Again.” I paused. “Two-year-old male, admitted for increasingly labored breathing and persistent stridor. He comes with a history of frequent respiratory infections, and his condition’s been worsening over the past twenty-four hours.
” Ease up on the speed. “On exam: The skin just above the breastbone pulls inward during inhalations, wheeze, low-grade fever…”